Spirit in the Rock: The Fierce Battle for Modoc Homelands by Jim Compton Bill Stafford

Abstract

435 Reviews the State Board of Higher Curricula, established in 1909 to avoid curricular duplication at OAC and the University of Oregon, led to “more than half a century of internecine conflict . . . over curriculum development and degree programs” (p. 54). These ongoing curricular conflicts, not the popular “civil war” contests on the football field, were the “real” civil wars between the two institutions (p.106–107). From chapters focusing on student and campus life to consideration of administrative strengths and weaknesses, Robbins’s volume holds appeal for general and academic audiences alike. The People’s School is an important addition to the growing body of research on the history of higher education in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Jean Ward Lewis & Clark College SPIRIT IN THE ROCK: THE FIERCE BATTLE FOR MODOC HOMELANDS by Jim Compton photography by Bill Stafford Washington State University Press, Pullman, 2017. Notes, bibliography, index. 340 pages. $27.95, paper. Journalist Jim Compton’s posthumously published account of the 1873 Modoc War offers a fine capsule history of the Modoc people and the war through which they briefly captured the nation’s attention. Keintpoos, or Captain Jack as he came to be known in media accounts of the war, is of course central to the narrative, but so too are the forces of industrialization and development . In a departure from previous accounts that portrayed Modocs as merely an intransigent group of holdouts, Spirit in the Rock weaves a more complex and compelling narrative. The division of Modoc lands looms as a primary factor in the war. Forging the ScottApplegate Trail through the heart of Modoc country in the late 1840s triggered an influx of settlers and violence in southern Oregon. By the 1860s, Modocs found themselves divided by an invisible Oregon-California border and immersed in two conflicting treaty processes. Oregon, with an eye toward increased settlement in the Klamath Basin, imposed a treaty that removed Modocs north to a reservation with rival Klamaths. The California treaty, perhaps reflecting an even greater remoteness of Modoc lands from the centers of power, allowed Modocs to retain a small piece of their homeland. Modocs waited with rival Klamaths, however, while the competing treaties passed through the Congressional ratification process. After five years, Captain Jack and his people left the Klamath Reservation, frustrated both by the passage of the Oregon treaty and Klamath dominance of reservation politics and economics. Compton delivers insight into these and other choices that Modocs faced in the late nineteenth century. He also highlights both the Applegate family and Hot Creek Modocs as two groups working against the interests of the Lost River Modocs. Indeed, the narrative placing a celebrated pioneer family at the center of the conflict that ultimately produced the war is one of the unique aspects of this book. Aside from promoting the trail bringing settlers through and to the region, the Applegates ranched on Modoc lands, later filled numerous posts on the Klamath Reservation, launched schemes that relied on the removal of Modocs to expand their empire, and were the primary source for foundational accounts of the conflict. The role of Hot Creek Modocs in sparking the war and ultimately betraying Captain Jack is also a compelling, if a more known, story. The details of how Indigenous people were alienated from their homelands are not always placed in the foreground in tales of the Indian Wars, but Spirit in the Rock provides an absorbing account of the ways in which powerful individuals forced a people into diminishing options. If war is the failure of diplomacy, there are few better examples than the 1872 U.S. Cavalry attack on the Lost River Modoc villages while negotiations were ongoing. The Modoc War thus offers a familiar pattern of a violent struggle over resources with legacies that mostly remain unresolved over a century later. Nevertheless, the recent return of Modoc 436 OHQ vol. 119, no. 3 remains for burial in their homeland offers some hope and the beginning of healing. Steven M. Fountain Washington State University, Vancouver GRASS ROOTS: A HISTORY OF CANNABIS IN THE AMERICAN WEST by Nick Johnson Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, 2017. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. 256 pages. $19.95, paper...